Sunday, April 24, 2016

When life hands you lemons...

Life lately has been lemonade (this is in no way a reference to that crazy, culty new Beyonce special on HBO (which BTW is flippin' nuts!)).  Nothing major is happening, but April has presented it's share of fun surprises.

Let's start with Carrie Underwood.  Now, I'll admit that I don't really follow Carrie's body of work, but I watched American Idol the year she was on and DAMN that girl's got pipes!  Anywho, Aaron's dad called me and randomly invited me to join them (he, his wife and Aaron's little sis, Timara) at the concert April 10th.  Anytime I get to hang out with my little sister is a good time, so I was in.
It was called "The Storyteller Tour" and Carrie was fantastic.  Her voice is REAL and intense and powerful and amazing.  Our seats were row 11 from the front, so we could see everything.  However, my iPhone 5 has the suckiest camera on Earth and make it look like I'm in the nosebleeds:
I could see her face so much clearer than this, I just couldn't capture it to save my life.
We had a blast, especially Timara, who's been a fan since she was a tiny tot:
I didn't know any of the songs, but it was still fun to kind of bop around with Timara while she belted out every line.

On the night of April 17th, Aaron came home!  He drove from Colorado in the middle of a blizzard!  At one point they shut down the highway and he manged to find an alternate route and still make it home!  Super sketchy, but I was so glad he made it!!  A couple pics from the road:
Colorado blizzard starting:
Nevada sunset:
I was so so happy to have him home, BUT I only got to keep him for a few days because he was scheduled to fly to Alaska on Thursday.

Aaron's dad sent out a group text and asked if anyone wanted their Warriors Playoff tickets (he is constantly hooking me up!).  I immediately responded I wanted them all, so on Monday, April 18, we went to the playoff game (with my brother and his girlfriend).  Super fun!
Aaron ordered this stupid horn to drink beer out of in the parking lot:
Yes, it's a legit horn off an animal and he paid a stupid amount of money to drink out of it.  Some people just shouldn't be allowed to online shop.
We had a couple horn beers in the parking lot:
and then off we went to see what the fuss was all about:
We met up with Aaron's sister, Jessica, who works at a bar inside (I didn't get a picture) and then we met up with my brother's friend who works on the floor doing security.  He actually let us onto the floor while some of the players were practicing and it was way cool.
You can barely see, but my brother is holding our free hookup nachos his friend gave us that are WAY better than the ones you can buy!  There were all kinds of toppings and they were huge!  
Me and my dad always make fun of this chick we see doing interviews on TV, so I had to snap a pic for him:
It's not that we make fun of her, so much as her cameraman and the way he totally cuts her face out of every shot and just keeps her nose in, so it's like a floating nose is interviewing people.  Pay attention next time you watch a game.  It's too weird.

Then we made it ALL the way up to our nosebleed seats:
No idea what's on my face in that one.
Nowhere near as cool, but we still had fun.  Montell Jordan did halftime and it was on point!
After the game we went outside and my brother stood behind the sportscasters and got on TV.  If you're ever wondering what kind of people do that, he's that guy drunkenly dancing behind the pasty old dudes in suits talking about technical fouls or whatever.
My mom knows he does this every time he goes to a game, so she records it on her phone, which she sent to us.  The quality is horrible because my phone can't process the pixels a good phone has, but just watch the drunk guy bopping his head and talking to a hat.  We were dying.

The next couple days were a blur, while we got everything Aaron needed for Alaska and spent some time with his family before I took him to the airport Thursday morning.  He took some plane shots:
It looks chilly!  He said it's definitely cold, but nothing he can't manage.
He tried a reindeer hot dog while waiting for his flight at the Anchorage airport:
He said it was weirdly sweet, but not bad.

The only other pictures I have are randoms, so bear with me.
This is what I made my dad for his birthday:
They're garden markers.  You stick (heheh stick, get it?) them in the ground next to the corresponding vegetable, as a label.  They don't look like much (and they're not, I cut some sticks I found in our backyard), but they're super cute in the garden (which I forgot to take a picture of because I'm incompetent).  My dad is the kind of guy who has everything he needs and isn't impressed by expensive, flashy gifts, so you really have to think outside the box with him.  Lately he's been obsessed with his garden, so I figured this would be good (bonus: it was totally free!).

One of my oldest and best friends, Ikue, lives in Japan (and is Japanese) and we never see each other, but sometimes we send each other pictures just to keep in touch.  She sent me these the other day of her 3 daughters:
Just adorable.  I can't wait to fly out and meet them someday.

Cute baby alert!!  I got to meet my newest nephew, Ronan:
One of my best friends from college, Mary, had a St. Patty's baby and he is just too cute!!  I just want to eat him up!

Kevin and Theo modeling the matching Muay Thai boxing shorts we got them in Thailand:
These handsome dudes belong to my bestie Ashley and they are just my favorite little family.  I go to their house every week for dinner and Theo plays with his "Auntie Sharms."

Girl's night with Melissa and Bianca:
I'm so bad at taking selfies, it's not even funny.  I can't even manage to get my whole face in EVER.

This might be news to some, but my mom wrote a book!  It's half memoir and half cookbook about the year she spent in India when she married my dad.  She was super young and had never been anywhere and suddenly she was in India with her fiance's family.  The memoir is about her year-long adventure (maybe that's where I get the wanderlust from) and the cookbook part contains all the Indian recipes my grandmother passed down to her.  She's been working on it for over a year and it's actually getting published and comes out in June!  I'll have more details soon, but long story long, the other day my dear friend, Mike, came over and did a legit photo shoot for the book's back cover:
He had all the fancy equipment and the pictures turned out great!  Fantastic job, Mike!

Lastly, I was driving on the freeway about a week ago and a bird flying by HIT MY WINDSHIELD SUPER HARD AND DIED!  OMG!  I didn't want to wash it off right away because I wanted to take a picture when I got to my destination (I know, I'm the worst):
I guess I waited too long to wash it because it got stuck and I just kinda ended up smearing it around with the windshield wipers (at least it's just the passenger side).  It's still there many days later and it's pretty foul, but I don't care enough to scrape it, so if you ever see a car with this on the window, say hi because it's me!

I know, I know, I still have to finish New Zealand!  I'm definitely getting to it soon because the pictures are burning a hole in my laptop and they are gorgeous!  Check back soon!  And I hope everyone watched Game of Thrones Episode 1 tonight!!!  So exciting!

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